TheFlash428

Easiest way to avoid having to decomtaminate an infected PC: 1. Surf smart 2. Keep your documents and personal files on a different drive/partition than your OS and apps. 3. Always keep any installation CDs for the hardware and software on your PC in a common location so you can easily reinstall anything. 4. nLite and RyanVM Post SP2 Update Pack -- With just these two tools you can easily customize an XP installation CD with your own preferences and fully up to date with all Microsoft updates. (see unattended forums for even more discussions on how nLite and other tools can help). Basically my point is this: I never have to worry about cleaning an infected system because I prefer to follow the guidlines above and if needed, wipe hard-drive and reinstall the OS in very minimal time (much less time than it usually takes to find and remove and infection, with much less headaches). I find many people without a lot of experience installing OS think that doing so will be a lot harder (and like giving up), but if you keep yourself prepared, it's the easiest way to go, IMO. ...time to step off my soapbox...

If you are limited because you are using a "work" or "company issued" PC, I would advise against what you are trying to do. Network admins don't restrict your rights just to prevent you from doing whatever you want, but also to protect the organization--depending on corporate policies, disiplinary action may be taken if you are found out, which is the main reason not to try to hack a corporate computer. If this is not your intent and your reasons for inquiring are legit, then yes, there are different ways to do this. Most methods involve booting your PC to a device other than the hard drive, but where the hard drive is accessible. That's the only clue I'll give. Even if I know how to do it, I always try to respect the rights management of those who own the computer--just food for thought.

I'm not sure how a post like this complies with the posting rules of the forum, but I don't mind giving my opinion... I've never been one to "upgrade for the sake of upgrading". Computer manufacturers and equipment retailers love it because with the new operating system comes a new set of "Minimum System Requirements", meaning that most consumsers don't have the necessary hardware to run the newest release and therefore are pressured into buying new equipment. When Windows XP was released several years ago, most people barely met the minimum requirements and were therefore unable to take advantage of the new features and functionallity of XP and at best only managed to slow down an otherwise fine system running an older OS. Add that to the fact that the initail XP release was full of bugs and security holes, many of which weren't fully patched until at least the Service Pack 1 level or beyond. I personally didn't start endorsing Windows XP until the 2nd SP was released, although I currently think that it is a very stable, reliable OS. Bottom line, my advice would be not to upgrade to Vista until the release is stable and adequate time for comsumer testing has passed--even if you decide to upgrade your equipment. Microsoft will continue to support Windows XP SP2 (or most recent SP) for at least 5 years from the date Vista is released. I currently work as a systems admin for a medium sized business office in the Washington, DC area.

Oddly enough, I've seen this before. A friend of mine had a home network setup, there were no local firewalls on the PC's (they were set up for unresticed file sharing, etc.) and he had one computer set up as a file and print server for the other computers on the network. Somehow that computer got infected with some kind of spyware and as soon as that happened, the "Network Connection" icons disappeared from the other computers that connected to the network! It was very strange. The only way we resolved it was to take the infected computer off the network and run system restore (which was successful) on the other computers.

could you (or anyone) elaborate--that, as I read it, is contradictory. Also, as long as this topic is up, I've always been confused about the "System Standby" and "Turn off hard disk" options. which one should be done before the other? or are these two events independant? I always assumed that putting a system into standby essentially powered down the hard drive as well, but I've never been sure... If I have my laptop configured to automatically go into standby mode, do I need to configure the "Turn off hard drive" option? Thanks.

Does it copy the files and then fail after the reboot? One thing to check is wether the computer is automatically booting to the CD instead of the hard drive. Most XP disks have a "press any key to boot from CD" option that appears when first booted, but that option can be removed (with nLite, for instance). If the BIOS boot order has the CD drive ahead of the hard drive, that could cause the install routine to start at the beginning instead of booting off the hard drive and completing the OS installation as expected.

The files should be found in the i386 folder on the XP CD, as compressed files--but I agree that ensuring the system is clean first and running sfc is the way to go.

After a successful Ghost--do you mean writing a Ghost image or using an existing image to build a new hard drive? If it's the latter, be aware that you cannot just use an image from one computer and place it onto another, especially if they have different hardware configurations. For the most part, and image created from one drive must be for restoring the same system, or an identical system. If your trying to use Ghost to clone windows and software installations accross different types of computers, I believe this is what SYSPREP is for, but I think Google could help you more with that than I can. Of course, this all also must be done within the guidlines of the MS EULA.

If the device is currently showing up in the device manager, then it should list the manufacturer/model, but if not, then it can be a little trickier--you may be able to find out by opening the case and checking the device itself, or check the computer manufacturer's web site to see if they have any information available on the particular model you have and what the standard specs are. Some computer vendors (i.e. Dell) will provide with their systems a disk with the component drivers for re-installation. while most of the time these drivers will be out date, the utility provided may help identify installed hardware.

That's strange because normally a greyed-out option for the dial would indicate that the system doesn't detect any usable devices to connect to for dial up (i.e. the modem). I would still suggest checking for drivers and re-installing them using device manager if you haven't done so already--that would definately be step one for me. If your only available option is as you put it for a DSL option, then it sounds like your PC is only recognizing the ethernet LAN network card as a usable device for networking.

In order for this to work, at least as in the example cited in the link provided, the "Track Changes" option needs to be turned on in MS Word. What this feature does is allow the author to document any and all changes made to a document and review them prior to accepting the chages. If this feature is remains active, then anyone viewing the file (wether it be the original author or a recipient of the document) can also view any changes made during the revision process. Track Changes can be found under the tools menu in MS Word. I'm not sure if there is a way to view the revisions in a file that has not had "Track Changes" enabled...?

Without getting into the whole IE vs. Firefox vs. Opera vs. etc... argument, I think IE7 is an improvement over IE6. I personally like it--my only real exception to it is the fact that the menus are turned off by default, but as long as I can turn them back on, I can't really complain too much. The beta versions were a bit unstable and some pages wouldn't load correctly, but the latest version is working just fine for me.

Have you checked device manager to make sure that the modem is working? This may very well be the result of an uninstalled modem driver. Unfortunately this can be a troublesome obstactle, since without an internet connection obtaining the needed device driver may be difficult. If you are able to access the Internet from another computer, I would suggest checking the manufacturer's web site for the appropriate device drivers and try installing them. If this isn't the problem, or if you've already tried this, it may help to post what steps you've already taken to try and resolve the problem to help rule out some possible explanations.

I don't know much about NFM's update pack, but it looks pretty good for x64. I'm a little confused about your reluctance to use RyanVM's pack. The "Post SP2 Update Pack" installs as one package using either nLite or it's own integrator. It is a very straight forward process and appears to be almost identical to the type of package that you linked to from NFM. RyanVM's Post SP2 Update Pack From this site you can also find some other 3-rd party custom packs that can also be integrated using nLite--some of them can be quite useful.

I'm sure you could do it that way--this would be similar to the way I run Ghost off a network drive. (I've never tried though).

I had same problem before, due to drivers for my SATA drive. It was a Dell computer and I got the error when trying to use an XP disc that came with my other Dell. (the disks appeared to be identical, I had nLited the first disc and made my customizations, so I assumed it was safe to use). I solved the problem by using the disc that came with the computer in question, after I applied my custom settings. Apparently the new XP disc had the correct drivers already installed on it. Not sure if this helps, but you're probably on the right track with the SATA controller drivers.

This is nothing I've ever heard of--MS's next OS release will be Vista, formerly code-name Longhorn. If what you speak of does exist, it probably isn't a "Windows" release, unless it's some code name for a future product I've never heard of. Regardless of how "powerful" it is (and I still doubt its existance), with no company to support it would never be anything you'd want to try to use. ...and yes, this really isn't the place for this post, try Google first--if nothing comes up, you've probably been sent on a wild goose chase.

Just thought I'd throw my method into the mix... I too use Ghost 2003 and I store all my disk images to a network share. I create a share on one of my servers, and copy the ghost.exe file into that share. I then boot to a TCP/IP network boot disk. Once the boot disk has run and I'm connected to my network in "DOS", I map a drive to my previously set up share and run Ghost.exe from there. Once ghost starts, I'm already mapped to my storage location where I can read or write and image to my hard-drive. There are a few out there, but this is where I get the network boot disk I usually use: Netboot Disk It boots up, detects your network card and then calls on DHCP to assign an IP address; after that, everything else is easy, as instructions for mapping the drive are even echoed on the screen. Looking for a way to write your image spans that you've saved to a network hard-drive to a bootable CD/DVD for restore purposes? Instructions are a little more involved, but send me a PM and I'll be happy to try and help.

Not an entire answer to your question, but I can tell you that the RynaVM update pack is meant to be integrated into a new installation source, NOT onto an existing instance of Windows XP. I'm pretty sure there's no real way to do that.

Either one should work. I too use Norton Ghost (and prefer it for your situation), but have also used TrueImage successfully. If you use Ghost, you can install it in Windows XP, run the app and it will set everything up for you. You can choose your destination (in your case the CD/DVD drive), select from a few options and start the process. It will automatically restart the system and boot to ghost and write the image to the drive specified. When writing to CD/DVD, it will even create the first disk of the image span as bootable for easy restore jobs. *One note: you may have to set some BIOS settings to get the correct CD/DVD drive to work, esspecially if you are using a USB drive. Most BIOS will support USB devices, but, for instance, on some of my Dell's I have to disable the on-board CD drive to use my USB DVD drive once Ghost boots up in DOS, otherwise my system doesn't detect it. That's just an example - you may have to play with it if it doesn't work as is. On a related note, if you already have a ghost image that you saved over the network, you can also write that to CD/DVD, but it a little more difficult. Here's a good website with instructions on how to create a boot image that you can use create a bootable Ghost CD/DVD that contains an image (or image span) that has already been saved to a hard-drive. Once you have created that boot image, you can use to write each span of your ghost image to a disc and go from there. Ghost Boot Disk Image

Try this... Go to your System32 folder and look for 2 folders "CatRoot" and "CatRoot2" Make backups of these folders. Open each folder and inside there should be some subfolders--open the subfolders and delete every file EXCEPT for the following: "catdb" and "timestamp". Repeat this for all folders under CatRoot and CatRoot2. Reboot. Try to run updates again. PS: I'm not knowlegable enough to explain what this does, but I found this solution once while trying to solve the same problem and it did work for me.

First off, pretty much everything you describe here is absolutely NORMAL. Every single file you listed SHOULD be present on your hard drive if windows is installed--deleteing them would cause your OS to crash or not boot at all! If they concern you then go to folder options and make sure "DO NOT SHOW HIDDEN FILES" is selected because you obviously have no need to see them. The screen flickering during setup is also normal--in fact I believe it actaully warns you at some point that this might happen. The only thing I cannot answer is the question about the hard-drive reformatting, but at first though I would not suspect malware--especially if it is a new drive! I don't say this very often, but I think you are too suspicious of Malware. If the subject of your post indicates that this was a test, then you should know that is not what this forum is about (in my opinion).

PerfectDisk is pretty nice, but it's not free. Raxco PerfectDisk Lots of great features and it's certified by Microsoft.

There are a few things that might provide an easy workaround: Install a different 3rd party video player to replace Windows Media Player (WMP). System restore prior to WMP upgrade, then try to re-do the upgrade process. See if installing WMP 11 (I believe it's still in Beta) solves the problem.

Have you checked the BIOS settings and/or the "master/slave" pin settings on the hard-drives?